The Progressive Conservatives have found their voice.

And Patrick Brown, the little-known Opposition leader who would be premier, is making himself heard. Just in time for the coming provincial election.

May 13, 2015

Who is Patrick Brown? Why should he be premier? What would he do in power?

He will cut income taxes. Reduce hydro rates. Impose a carbon tax. Issue refund cheques for child care. Take over our subways and build more of them. Boost health-care funding.

And step down if he doesn’t deliver on his key promises in four years.

His proclamation of a “People’s Guarantee” — signed onstage with a dramatic flourish — had the ring of a Marxist people’s manifesto as 1,500 loyal convention delegates cheered him on. Brown is no Bolshevik, but on Saturday he purged the party of the ghost of Mike Harris — and the Common Sense Revolution that has haunted PCs for decades, culminating with the defeat of Tim Hudak in 2014.

August 31, 2016

Now, Brown is remaking the party in his own emerging image — a mirror image of the Bill Davis era that tried harder to be all things (or more things) to all people. Not just right-wing people.

It is a focused, focus-group-tested campaign platform with a twist — more heft and left than hard right, offering more political lift than trickle-down:

September 21, 2017

Surprisingly progressive income tax cuts are targeted at lower-income people, not high rollers (including a sales tax credit). The child-care credits offer more to poor people with less, and rebate actual expenses (unlike the no-strings-attached “baby bonus” that Stephen Harper’s Tories conjured up to buy votes federally).

This election platform is not just a U-turn from the Harris years but an off-ramp from the Harper hothouse where Brown and many of his staff got their start. Instead of the provocative “chain gangs” that Tories proposed to punish prisoners in 2011, Brown offers “anti-gang” money to combat human trafficking of women. (Continued: Toronto Star)

U.S. NAFTA auto proposal faces criticism from Canada and Mexico

The United States negotiating team found itself squeezed at home and abroad during NAFTA talks on Monday, with various actors from Canada, Mexico and within the U.S. pressing it to reconsider demands called unworkable and unworthy of serious bargaining.

November 14, 2017

The Canadian and Mexican governments have refused to produce a counterproposal at the current round of talks on auto policy and are instead delivering a presentation on the self-inflicted damage they claim it would wreak upon America.

Their case was bolstered within the U.S. Senate.

A major auto association told a hearing that the current proposal could induce companies to leave this continent and simply pay import tariffs. This was on the same day that 18 U.S. senators sent a letter demanding the administration conduct an economic analysis before making any changes to NAFTA.

August 24, 2017

The U.S. stunned its partners by demanding that car companies quickly transform their supply chains to boost North American content; ensure half of a car’s parts come from the U.S.; use a new, stricter formula for calculating the origins of a car’s components; and do it all within a year.

“No vehicle produced today could meet such an onerous standard,” the Senate hearing was told by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

“This proposal is unprecedented and would have significant ramifications on our industry and the U.S. economy, as a whole.”

The U.S. negotiating team is urging people to tone down the rhetoric.

August 17, 2017

It apparently views such proposals as a starting point. An American source familiar with the talks pointed to evidence of the U.S. willingness to negotiate in good faith: the very broadly phrased list of American objectives published online last week.

In a few cases, that list includes specific numbers — like the demand that Canada relax its duties on online purchases by $780. In the case of automobiles, though, there are no numbers — just a reference to a desire for U.S. content in cars.

June 29, 2016

The source said this is normal in negotiating. But what’s less normal, the source said, is the public rhetoric by the Canadian side, with talk of red-lines and non-starters that will make it harder to advance negotiations.

The Canadians adopted a deliberate strategy at this round of proposing nothing on the hardest issues.

Instead, they will deliver a presentation and demand details. Along with Mexico, Canada will press the American side for clarity on how the auto proposal would work, with the subtext of that conversation being their belief that the proposal would not, in fact, work at all. (Source: Toronto Star)

Robert Mugabe accused of breaching constitution to promote his ‘corrupt’ wife

July 22, 2008

A concerted drive by parliament and the people, with the backing of the military, is due to take place on Tuesday to try and force Robert Mugabe to resign. MPs will start impeachment proceedings against the President while hundreds of thousands of protesters are expected to march on his mansion vowing to put it under siege until he leaves.

But there were also reports that Mr Mugabe has called for a cabinet meeting on Tuesday as well to show that he is still in charge. A notice from his chief secretary has instructed all members to attend at 9am. The President is nonetheless still under house arrest and many of his ministers have been detained following last week’s military coup. The place where cabinet meetings are held, Munhumutapa Building in the centre of the capital, is now shut and guarded by soldiers and an armoured personnel carrier.

July 25, 2008

The moves come after an extraordinary and chaotic 24 hours in which Mr Mugabe apparently agreed to resign on state television but instead used the broadcast, sitting next to military commanders who are his captors, to vow that he will stay on in office to unify the nation and supervise reforms.

Mr Mugabe then ignored an ultimatum from his own party, Zanu-PF, which had stripped him of leadership, to resign by midday Monday or face impeachment. There are differing accounts of how long it will take to remove the President from office through the process, ranging from one day to more than a week.

February 27, 2002

Separately, the organisation of veterans who fought in the war against white minority rule has announced that it will take legal action at the High Court to force Mr Mugabe’s resignation. Its head, Christopher Mutsvangwa, charged that the President had condemned himself out of his own mouth when making his speech on which he admitted failures by his government. (Source: The Independent)

Will a lawsuit help Ontario students get their money back after college strike?

Frustrated and financially burdened students affected by the Ontario colleges strike are turning to the courts to try to get some cash back.

A class action was commenced on Tuesday that seeks to recover tuition money on behalf of the thousands of students at 24 colleges who have been out of class since mid-October.

Going down the lawsuit road could be a long and ultimately unsuccessful journey, but there could still be some benefits to it in the short term, say class action experts.

Pressure on the Ontario government to step in and force an end to the strike, now in its fifth week, ramped up Thursday when the latest contract offer from the College Employer Council was rejected by striking faculty, represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.

Premier Kathleen Wynne met with representatives from both sides on Thursday afternoon, and several hours later her government announced it would introduce legislation to force them into binding arbitration and end the strike. The premier said she wants to see students back in class by Monday morning.

This will be the longest college strike in Ontario’s history, and students have been demanding tuition refunds since it began. A petition they started says full-time students are owed $30 per day of the strike based on the average tuition cost per semester. (Source: CBC)

Da Vinci painting sells for $450 million, shattering auction records

After 19 minutes of dueling, with four bidders on the telephone and one in the room, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold Wednesday night for $450.3 million U.S., or $575 million Canadian, with fees, shattering the high for any work of art sold at auction. It far surpassed Picasso’s “Women of Algiers,” which fetched $179.4 million (U.S.) at Christie’s in May 2015.

August 25, 2012

The buyer was not immediately disclosed.

There were gasps throughout the sale, as the bids climbed by 10s up to $225 million, then by 5s up to $260 million, then by 2s. As the bidding slowed, and a buyer pondered the next multimillion-dollar increment, Jussi Pylkkanen, the auctioneer, said, “It’s a historic moment: We’ll wait.”

There were two big jumps toward the end to shake off the competition by Alex Rotter, Christie’s chairman of postwar and contemporary art for the Americas, who represented a buyer on the phone.

The price is all the more remarkable at a time when the old masters market is contracting, because of limited supply and collectors’ penchant for contemporary art.

And to critics, the astronomical sale attests to something else — the degree to which salesmanship has come to drive and dominate the conversation about art and its value. Some art experts pointed to the painting’s damaged condition and its questionable authenticity. (Source: Toronto Star)